Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [65]
After the pause, even if your first words are simply “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” you have made a positive start, which is sometimes the hardest part of making a speech. From then on, concentrate on your message.
Oral Emphasis
You can place emphasis on any of the many elements in your speech, such as the most interesting point, the apex of your thinking, your major conclusions, or your new ideas for the future. What you decide to emphasize should be the main points that you want your audience to remember.
Once you have decided what should be emphasized, bring all of your speechmaking skills into play. Use resonance, pauses, candor, intonation, pitch, or volume to highlight your text.
Sentences, too, each have a point of emphasis. You stress the important word or words and throw away or subordinate the unimportant ones. Typical throw-away words are articles, conjunctions, or prepositions. This emphasis adds variety to your delivery. Monotony results when all the words in a sentence are given equal emphasis.
You can change the meaning of any sentence simply by choosing which words you want to emphasize. For example, the following is a nonsense sentence, with each word in turn emphasized to change the meaning. The sentence is given first, followed by the meaning of that particular emphasis:
• “I will go to the well,” means what it says.
• “I will go to the well,” means I will go, not you.
• “I will go to the well,” means I will go in the future.
• “I will go to the well,” means I will go, not stay here.
• “I will go to the well,” means I will go to that one particular well.
• “I will go to the well,” means I will go the well, not the pump.
By putting a short pause before and after the emphasized word and by using resonance from the chest, the meaning of each word in the sentence is changed. You use the same technique in emphasizing a thought, a sentence, or a significant point in your speech.
You sort out the meaning of your message for your listeners. You decide what you want them to hear, to remember, and to understand. You decide where the emphasis will be.
Your Posture
Be aware of your posture at all times, whether you are walking, sitting, or standing. Basic good posture involves centering your body and holding yourself erect with your head up.
Walk to the podium or the front of the stage with authority, pressing your heels into the floor and stretching your body to its full height. Keep your neck long, your head high, and your jaw level with the floor. Breathe deeply to keep the oxygen supply high. But don’t walk in a stiff, artificial, or awkward manner; concentrate on presenting a relaxed picture.
Adjust the podium mike to your height.
If you are short, you should stand slightly to one side of a podium that is too tall for you. Or to raise your height while standing, carry a sturdy, small, metal suitcase, and place it unobtrusively behind the podium. It is important for your audience to see you at all times.
Place your notepad on the podium but do not touch it, put your hands on it, or lean on it. When you lean on a podium, it breaks the body line and wrinkles the sleeves of your jacket. It also diminishes your ability to breathe from the diaphragmatic muscle. Remember, you need to be free to breathe out of the small of your back and to gain resonance in your chest by “talking out of your heels,” so to speak. This flattens the tummy and lifts the rib cage.
If you sit at a desk or table during your presentation, put your notes on the table but, again, do not lean on it with your hands placed forward. Even seated, you should support and center your body by pressing your heels into the floor. Keep your hands off the table so that they are not seen in the foreground of the picture you are presenting with your body: Your face is more important than your hands. Even if everyone else who is on a panel with you leans on the table with their hands placed forward, you should be the one to use erect and correct (but relaxed) posture.
If you are sitting in a chair—with